All About Pool Sessions
EPISODE 3
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Pool Sessions. Everyone knows them, no one loves them, and they are the difference between AFSPECWAR and nearly every other selection. What should you expect. How to be successful?
Gear set up- Attention to detail and uniformity
After you get off the bus at the pool, one of the first things you do is haul your gear to the side, and set it up in a uniform way. For many, this task may seem a bit over the top for a pool session, however, there is a very good reason behind it with real world implications. As an operator, regardless of your job, attention to detail and uniformity can literally be the difference between life and death. You might be a jumpmaster inspecting guys before they jump out of a perfectly good plane, and if you miss one small, minute detail… they could be dead. You might be a JTAC, fudge the grid coordinates, and all of a sudden you just dropped some heat on your buddies. Gear set up instills attention to detail and uniformity. You will get it wrong, your teammates will get it wrong, just learn from it and keep pressing on. Starting each pool session with correct gear set sup will also start it out on the right foot. Start right.
Underwaters- all mental, stress inoculation
First, let me start by saying… don’t try these at home. Do not ever do these without someone vigilantly watching you. Underwaters are dangerous. Ok, now that is out of the way, underwaters are a particular aspect of pool sessions many are afraid of. Why? Let’s explain what an underwater is. The underwater event is referring to exactly what it says, swimming underwater for 25 to 50 meters, depending on what phase of training you're in. And when you do it, it's at an interval. So the stopwatch starts on zero and then three minutes later, if it's a three minute interval, you're going to go again. You will use the keyhole stroke to get to the other side. You touch the wall to turn around, you push off, and then you freestyle back to your position and you wait until the three minutes tells you to go. That's what an underwater is. The biggest reason why people are scared of it is obviously you're deprived of oxygen. If you pop, then everyone's going to see it. All the instructors are walking around and watching who's popping. The best way to get through these sessions is to stay calm, cool, collected while being efficient in the water. Getting hopped up on coffee before a pool session, getting your heart rate going, isn’t going to help you with the stress.
Mask and snorkel- intricate tasks done to perfection
If you're not familiar with what a mask and snorkel recovery is, you have your scuba mask, you have the snorkel and it gets dropped at the far and deep end of the pool. You are on the shallow end of the pool. Depending on what your number is, you are called… “Ones Ready… Go!” You go subsurface and proceed underwater the entire way until you reach your mask and snorkel. Then while you are still submerged underwater, you are donning your mask and your snorkel, clearing your mask and then coming up to the surface and given an okay to the instructors. A lot of people struggle with this because they're not used to having water in their mask.
What are the cadre looking for? Most of all, we want to see that you can learn something and put it to use under a somewhat stressful situation. A big reason why guys fail is very simple. Once they put on their mask, they'll just push off the bottom and jump up and not look up. You're supposed to be looking up to make sure you don't hit your head on anything. There's a reason behind every single thing that you do in a selection. So just follow the procedures and stay calm. After that, it’s muscle memory. You can practice all this stuff in your room. So get to the point, you know when we go to the shooting range, you dry fire a lot more than you actually throw any lead down range. So same thing dude, do that in your room. Practice in your room. This is your only task that you have to be concerned about while you're down there, it's only going to be four weeks of your life. So stay on task and make stuff happen. Just remember that amateurs practice until they get it right. But professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.
Buddy breathing- think of your buddy before yourself
What is buddy breathing? So buddy breathing, we have a snorkel, we're sharing a snorkel. We have to pass it back and forth. That's the only way that you can breathe. And the instructor is doing everything he can to interrupt that breathing. He's trying to take the snorkel, he's trying to break your grips. He'll cap the snorkel and he'll keep you from breathing in the snorkel, he'll steal your breath.The only thing that's in your head should be, I’m trying to stay completely loose, completely relaxed. The only thing that I'm grabbing really hard is my buddies wrist and this snorkel and I'm just forcing the snorkel towards my buddy. Every time that I feel him get a breath taken, I'm like, I have to breathe so fast to get it back to him. Just get them that air and then stay relaxed, float, stay relaxed. Don't let go of your buddy. Get them air. It's pretty simple. It's really not that complicated. During selection, we can’t safely simulate ocean swells, high gusting winds, and rotor wash in your face… so we do buddy breathing.
Equipment recovery- dive specific intricate task
So equipment recovery, you're going to start out with a weight belt. Basically there's a decline in the pool where it goes into the deep end. You're going to come off the edge, you're going to have to tread out in the water. There's a prescribed amount of time that you need to tread and then the instructor will tell you to go. So submerge yourself and ditch your equipment. You go down, ditch your equipment and you have to set it up in a certain way, just like you have to set it up on the side of the pool. You set up a certain way. It looks good. You come up to the surface and you're just waiting until the instructor is checking your gear and then if it's good or not, they're going to tell you to go down. Don your equipment, you swim down, you don your equipment in a certain order. You make sure you clear your mask, make a proper ascent to the surface. Again, you're wearing a weight belt. So you hold your hands up, tread to the side of the pool, and then put your hands, you know, get yourself out of the pool, hands on your head, don't touch anything, and you wait to be inspected until the instructor tells you you're good to go. If you mess up anything, then you can expect that you go again and do it all over again, whether it's immediately or they're being nice and giving you a break.
Just one of the key things with the ditch and don and knot tying, is that guys get really focused on one thing… like their inability to see in order to make sure everything's correct (you will have your mask off). When it's the same kind of muscle memory thing that you can do like mask and snorkel recovery. You should be able to feel it. Like boom, you do a single check on your gear and you know that it's good to go and then you just go to the surface. You shouldn't even need to really look at it. So that's just one thing that guys end up passing out on because they're trying to focus on those little things so much. We preach attention to detail, right? But there is a point of no return if you are so focused on the three knots that you have to tie. If you're so focused on that one and making sure that it's completely perfect and you don't get the others… well, that's still a fail buddy.
Drown proofing- tradition and calm under pressure
All of us at Ones Ready agree that Drown proofing is probably the most relaxing and easiest part of a pool session. Think of it as the relaxing part of the pool session. You can relax and could really get your heart rate down. In this activity, you have your hands and your feet bound behind you, and then you're, you're bobbing and then you're also kind of traversing the pool and whatever way you can, and you're also floating. If you can’t use your arms and legs, reframe it and think of it as a positive. That's less energy to output compared to the other aspects of pool sessions.
So why do we do it? This is the story I heard and I'll just pass it like it's true, but some, a UDT members were caught in Vietnam and they were basically thrown. Hands and feet tied and thrown in the water, because uh, they had not done drown proofing before, they were unable to continue to float and a couple of them died. So there was a story that was imparted to me by a couple instructors, but who knows…
Finning
When you're talking about finning at A&S, you make your money on the turns. So you're not going to do flip turns. You're going to hit the wall, you're going to turn around, you're going to go back underneath. I found, so I was a water polo player and a swimmer and walls were inherently important, at least in competitive swimming, right? That's the first tip… use your wall. Get a good push off those walls… good, tight, streamlined, really big kicks, and then get into it. The lead arm trail arm is how you're going fin so you're going to have, it's exactly what it sounds like. You're going to have one arm out in front of you. You're basically going to be looking down that arm. When you're finning look and where you're going, and when you breathe, you're going to kind of look opposite that arm. You're going to put your mouth out of the water, you're going to try to breathe. So number one, be as efficient as possible. If you do it right, you'll have to just barely move your head cause you'll create a wave and there's a little pocket behind the wave and that's where you can breathe. Big kicks.
In selection we also do flutter kicks. A lot of flutter kicks. It is one of the staple calisthenics that we do in A&S before predive. You know why? Because you have to use your hip flexors to fin 💡 Remember there are reasons for every single thing you’re doing. Finning is actually another one of those events where there's nobody harassing you. It's more of like an endurance event. Getting you ready for those open ocean are those open water fins that you're going to do later on in your career.
Another important part of training for finning are the types of fins that you guys use. The trainers are the ones that fit kind of like socks, where you don't need another boot or anything to wear them. Start out with these before you join. And if you have a long enough time to train like eight months or a year, then you can buy your other jet fins after you use the trainers for a few months. Make sure you work yourself up to the jet fins because they are going to be heinous on your ankles.
The clock
Let’s talk about the clock. Pool sessions are going to be a four to five hours. What you shouldn’t do is focus on the end. Get through a pool session in bite sized pieces. Focus on the task you’re doing, then focus on the next, and so on. Even if you get used to a particular routine, these can be switched up to induce more stress. So focusing on the task at hand or your 5 meter target will allow you to stay calm, cool, and collected. Don’t get focused on the finish line, because in reality it can keep moving further and further away from you if the cadre decide.
conclusion
Realize that pool sessions are inevitable, and it’s your job to manage that stress to ensure you’re working well under stress, and efficient in the water. By focusing on small bite sized tasks, all of a sudden the whole pool session is over and you got through another day. Keep a positive mindset. Remember there’s a reason for each event you’re doing and even if you’re getting some extra harassment… it’s not personal. Cadre want to ensure they are selecting the right person to become one of their brothers. How you react, whether or not you poop in the pool, your reputation is being built NOW. People will remember you and your actions. Don’t be the guy that pops on an underwater…. because there is no break in a fire fight. We don’t want the guy that is going to hide behind a corner while the rest of us are getting shot at. Have confidence in yourself and be prepared for those pool sessions.
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